On July 20th our family lost a great man. Indeed I believe that anyone who ever met Uncle Frank knew that he was a great man. He was a man that meant a great deal to me for many different reasons throughout my life. My Maternal Grandfather passed away while I was very young and my Paternal Grandfather lived in Saskatchewan (which is essentially the same as being dead) Uncle Frank acted as my Grandfather.

He and Aunt Dorothy would drag their trailers across the mountains from Calgary to meet the family camping at various locations or would set-up shop in our driveway. These visits were always greatly anticipated by Sister and I as Uncle Frank and Aunt Dorothy always took lots of time out of their holidays to play with us, take us places and just love us.

The past 10 days have been difficult as I've never really lost anyone with as much impact on my life as Uncle. The night I found out I think I cried for 3 hours straight. The funeral in Three Hills was incredibly difficult. I only took two days off to go down for the funeral as I wisely figured that diving headlong back into work was the best way of dealing with everything.

There are a few things that I will always remember about Uncle Frank. The house on 19th Ave where everyone was always welcome. How he was always the epitome of a gentleman. How he always made people feel comfortable and how he never had a bad word to say about anyone.

Uncle, I will always miss you.

This past weekend was awesome. I just got back tonight from Vancouver where we were involved in all sorts of festivities for the marriage of Matthew and L. Altogether I have to say I think it was one of the best run weddings I've ever seen. Everything was organized, well planned out and a true testament to the Bride's organizational abilities. My part of the wedding saw me acting as the MC of the reception.

This weekend saw a lot of dancing. After the stag "festivities" on Friday afternoon we (Sister, Peter and my friend S) called up the amazing Ms. J and went out to 1181 on Davie then to The O. After dancing up a storm 'till 2:30 in the morning we made our way back to Pitt Meadows and collapsed. As usual a fantastic time had by all.

And now I'm exhausted so it's time to shut things down and go to bed.

Two extremely important people in my life are in the hospital tonight. One of them my Great Uncle Frank is in Calgary and we're really not sure if he's going leave the hospital. The other, is one of our dearest family friends Mrs. C. She's in the hospital in Vernon.

Thinking of both of these people I can only hope and aspire to be like them in some way. Uncle Frank is the composite Gentleman. Everyone loves him and he's one of those people who never has a bad word to say about anyone. Mrs. C is part of one of the most dynamic duo's I've ever seen. She and her husband went out and bought another computer a few months ago so that they could "stay with it". One of the wisest women in my life. As I sit here tonight thinking of them and the future without them I can't help but feel sad yet, spurred on to be more like these two incredible people. You've both been incredible influences in my life.

My thoughts are with you, even though I can't be.

I just downloaded 'Introducing Joss Stone' on iTunes. What a phenomenal album. I highly recommend it. Soulful and powerful it's excellent listening.

People who have never spent time in the environment in which I work everyday cannot understand the sheer stupidity of some of the people that I come into contact with everyday.

A few days ago I had to turn a new employee around at the airport when I got a last minute call that he'd failed his drug test. Understandably he was pretty upset about the whole situation and with the fact that we sent him back to Vancouver, when he was expecting to come to work and make some money.

Two days later he called me in a state of, what can only be described as desperation. For the life of him he couldn't figure out how marijuana had gotten into his system as "I've never smoked it in my life!" When I half jokingly suggested that he'd been Ross Rebagliatied he didn't understand so I explained about second hand smoke etc. Well he didn't think that was it either. He then went on to tell me that he wouldn't even know what the stuff looked like if his wife didn't put it in her spaghetti sauce... Seriously, this conversation actually did happen. I ended the conversation by telling our friend that if he passed the drug test he'd be good to go for a job with our company. I suggested that he stay away from his wife's spaghetti for the next few months as well.

Story number two isn't necessarily as funny... oh hell who am I kidding, it is! I'm sitting at my desk when the phone rings. It's a Manager from one of the camps that we have our Craft people staying in. Turns out that this Gentleman had gotten drunk or high (we're still not sure which) and decided that his neighbour snored to loudly. So he left his room and proceeded down the hall kicking doors in. Did I mention that he was "balls assed naked"? The Camp Manager told me that in all his years in camp he'd never seen a naked man demolish doors like that. Reading the witness reports were pretty funny. One of them simply stated "I was sleeping. My door blew apart and a naked man was standing in the door screaming at me. I went back to sleep." By the time the Police arrived and hauled jay bird off to jail I think the whole camp knew about what happened. The next morning when buddy called his Foreman he conveiniently left out the fact that he was naked and had spent the night in jail.

My third and final story involved some of our European workers. These "Gentlemen" had just got back from their time at home and decided to get very drunk. While they decided that it would be a good idea to see how far they could get with one of the cleaning ladies. She of course went screaming to her Manager who called me to tell me these guys were out. I sent the calvary who raced out to the camp, made the guys shower, sober and pack up as much as they could then threw them into a truck to get them to a plane. As they headed off down the road the driver tells me he hears the distinctive "ppsssssssshhhhhhhhh" sound of a can being opened... The boy's had decided their experience had been so stressful they needed a drink...

These are just three examples of a day in my life. Enjoy.